In the early 1960s, business owners worried that the proposed Interstate 15 would divert tourists from Cedar City as they travelled to Zions and Bryce Canyon national parks. Fred C. Adams, a professor at Southern Utah State College, thought a theater festival might encourage passing tourists to exit the new freeway. For its first season in 1962, the Utah Shakespeare Festival used a makeshift outdoor platform as a stage, with the audience seated in folding chairs on the lawn. In 1977, the festival built the Adams Shakespearean Theatre, a replica of the original Globe Theatre.